B help surgeons?

Multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS) is a post-operative complication of major surgery and accounts for most of the deaths in surgical intensive care units. MODS develops following severe systemic inflammation mediated by activated neutrophils. NFκB is a transcription factor involved in the signal transduction of many proteins implicated in the pathogenesis of sepsis and thus may have a role in MODS.

In January Annals of Surgery, a team from the Imperial College School of Medicine, London, UK suggests a clinical role for NFκB by showing that high preoperative levels of this factor may predict MODS after major surgery (Ann Surg 2001, 233:70-78).

Sharmila Foulds and colleagues measured the levels of NFκB, in 25 patients undergoing thoracoabdominal aortic aneurysm repair and found a significant difference in preoperative levels between the patients who developed postoperative MODS and those who did not. But there were no differences in the...